282 STUDIES IN INSECT LIFE, ETC. 



a warlock, he paused before publicly embarking 

 on that trade. 



Under the Tudors, the laws against witchcraft 

 were milder than those of other countries, but, 

 under James I., these laws were repealed and he 

 himself took as he had done before in Scotland 

 an active part in this cruel and senseless perse- 

 cution. During the first eighty years of the 

 seventeenth century, no less than 70,000 men 

 and women are said to have been executed for 

 alleged offences under the new act. The king 

 even wrote a book on demonology, attacking the 

 more sensible and reasonable views of Scot and 

 Weir. It must be remembered, however, that, 

 in these times, the generality of learned and able 

 men believed in the maleficent effects of sorcery 

 and the black art. The bench of bishops and 

 the bench of judges alike took part in what seems 

 to us a hideous and wanton brutality. Even so 

 great a writer as Sir Thomas Browne, who tells 

 us, " for the sorrows of others he has quick sym- 

 pathy, " gave evidence against two unhappy 

 women charged before Sir Matthew Hale at Bury 

 St. Edmunds, and his evidence helped to secure 

 their iniquitous conviction. 



Browne, like many of his day, was a firm 



